


A Heart Shaped Hole

by Inumaru12



Series: Like Rainbow Colored Playdoh (All Meshed Together) [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: But also different, Dealing with the aftermath of trauma, Dissociation, Gen, I guess what happens in this can be considered dissociation, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illnesss, Non descriptive throwing up scene, Not so much dialouge in this part but there will be more in the next part, Post Kingdom Hearts 3, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self Isolation, Sora being afraid to open up about how he's feeling, Spoilers for KH3, This is largely an introspection fic, self blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 07:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17658719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inumaru12/pseuds/Inumaru12
Summary: The side effect of having multiple hearts in one body, in one heart holding them all, was much more than anyone realized.  But Sora wanted to help those lost hearts, even if it meant getting hurt in the process.  He just didn’t realize how empty it would make him.





	A Heart Shaped Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! I haven't written anything in a while, so my writing of this is exciting and nervous! I hope I can get back into the groove of writing and I guess I don't hold back because instead of writing a one shot, I go and decide to make an entire series. : o Figures, lol. Also, please read the warnings, and if by the end of the fic you think I need to tag something else, please let me know in the comments and I'll make sure to do so!

Sora didn’t have to think twice about helping the lost hearts that resided in his own.  He barely knew them, but in a way, he did and loved them regardless.  Seeing how happy they all were, in their own bodies, acknowledged the fact that Sora had made the right choice in helping them.  As he watched them all with their loved ones, his own heart twitched inside his chest, a feeling of something wrong and not knowing what filled Sora.  Before he could contemplate that feeling and figure out why, the final battle was upon them and Sora rushed to battle.

 

They came back, victorious, and with a new sense of freedom and new friendship.  Sora, Riku and Kairi went back to Destiny Islands, back home to stay and were welcomed back into the arms of their loved ones.  Things seemed to settle down, as they all got used to being home.

 

It took Sora a while to realize that something was wrong with him.  He just thought the empty feeling was just the strangeness of being home after so long away.  Of the strangeness of finally being able to rest.  He started realizing there were other things wrong with him too, besides the feeling of being empty.  To start with, Sora was constantly tired, it was as if he could never get enough sleep.  At first, his mother had been content to let him sleep in, just smiling at him fondly and with a gentle but shaky hand running through his hair, as if she was afraid if she didn’t touch him, that he wasn’t actually real. Slowly though, she started pushing him to get up out of bed more to even straight up annoyed with him, to going back to worried when she would see the bags under his eyes.  When she asks him what’s wrong, if he feels sick, Sora can’t tell her why, but just that he’s always tired now.

 

Even more alarming signs of something being wrong with him was the fact Sora couldn’t remember things.  One day when Sora’s mom had stayed home with him and the two of them were going through photo albums and Sora’s mom had pointed out a man and talked fondly of him and about how she missed him.  Sora looked at the man and realized he had no idea who he was, but didn’t tell that to his mother.  That turned out to be the right choice as his mother continued to talk about the man, who turned out to be his father, and how his father would be proud of him.

Sora knows that should have meant something to him, but it didn’t, as he had no memories of the man to hold onto emotional attachment to.  So he just smiled (and lied) and thanked her for saying that.  That seemed to satisfy his mom and they went through the multitudes of photo albums for the rest of the afternoon.  Going through the albums made Sora realize that he couldn’t remember a lot of things from his life.  It should have upset him, it should have made him sad. 

 

But instead, he just felt numb.

 

Time went by and there were days he could barely get himself out of bed, and the days he did, he usually wished he was back in bed.  He was back in school with Riku and Kairi and while Riku had studied hard and gotten back into the flow of things, Sora struggled to keep up, to even focus on the work he was given.  Riku and Kairi offered to help them, but Sora saw that he was holding them back, stopping them from focusing on their own work so he waved them off, telling them that he’d work on it on his own.  He ignored the worried looks he got from Kairi and was thankful when Riku pulled her away, telling her that Sora would ask for help if he needed it.  Sora ignored the pointed look Riku gave him, and also ignored the fact he doesn’t even know fully what was wrong with himself.

 

One day after school, when it’s just Kairi and Sora walking home, Kairi sees something and runs off, telling Sora to wait for her right there.  When she eventually comes back, he’s exactly in the same spot and not focusing on the world around him.  She pushes something cold into his hand and the sensation is so sharp that it pulls him out of the blank space he was in.  He blinks slowly, looking down at what was shoved into his hand.  A ice cream in a wrapper, and when Sora looks up to thank Kairi, he takes in a sharp breathe as he sees Xion instead smiling at him with a sea-salt ice cream in her hands for herself.  He blinks, blinks again, and Xion is gone and its only Kairi there, with the same face but different colors, holding an ice cream that is a red color instead of the bright blue that he saw before.  She has an expected grin on her face, which is slowly fading as he stares at her blankly.

 

Sora smiles, forcing himself to laugh, he thanks her for the ice cream and tells her that he’ll pay her back.  Her smile returns and they both laugh together as they make their way to the docks to sit and eat their ice cream and talk about nothing.  Sora continues to force himself to smile, even as every bite and lick of his ice cream he expects to taste the sweet and salty taste of sea-salt ice cream.  Even as he glances to his right and keeps expecting to see another person next to him but instead there is no one.   Sora smiles and laughs with Kairi and eventually they actually make their way home.  Sora breaks off with Kairi, waving goodbye and thanking her again for the ice cream, before making his way home.

He’s alone when he’s home and he drops all his stuff at the door and runs into the bathroom where he can’t hold back anymore.  He throws up all of the too bitterly sweet, not salty-sweet, ice cream and just lies with his head on the toilet seat, unable to stop shaking.  Eventually, he stands on shaky legs and looks into the mirror, which was a mistake.  Instead of seeing his face, Sora’s face, he sees others.  From dirty blond hair to pitch black, he sees faces that aren’t his but at the same time, are.  His head spins and for the second time in manner of moments, Sora finds himself sick again, even with nothing to expel.   Even after everything is gone from his body, his body shakes and tears cascade down his cheeks.  Eventually, Sora gets up and cleans up without looking at the wrongness in the mirror, and leaves the bathroom.  He takes to covering all his mirrors that he owns as every time he looks into one, he sees a face that is not his own, but also feels right.

 

Months pass and it’s getting colder now, or at least as cold as it gets on an island.  The water becomes brisker, the sun not as warm, and school becomes more serious as exams are around the corner.  The emptiness inside Sora seems like its growing, stretching to all corners of his body.  Now it seems like he can barely feel anything on the outside as well.  He accidently poured boiling water onto his arm when cooking with his mom, and he felt none of the pain or major concern that his mother was expressing.  He simply use magic and the green colored spell covered his arm and healed the burn that he didn’t really register as painful.  His mother worried, continued asking if he was alright until Sora finally just confessed that he just felt tired, that was all, and went to bed early for the night.  He didn’t even wait for dinner to be done so that he could eat; the hunger pains were constant but also barely registered.

 

Riku and Kairi were constantly in his life, but also busy.  They, along with everyone else in their school, seemed to be taking everything the teachers said seriously and were working hard.  His two friends were getting annoyed with him, he could tell even if they would never outright say it, at how he seemingly wasn’t doing his work or slacking off.  The more Riku and Kairi worked at school, the less Sora saw them as they were ahead of him in school work as he was still on remedial work.

 

Everyone seemed to either be annoyed with Sora lately, or just didn’t have time for him.  Even when he did finally have the energy to call someone on his gummi phone, it seemed they never wanted to talk for long.  Tired of toying with his phone and fighting with himself to call someone during the long moments of feeling empty, Sora put the phone in his closet and into some boxes he had for storage.  He never did figure out how to turn it off, but he figured if someone did call him, if they couldn’t reach him and if it was important, they’d call Riku or Kairi next.

 

Sora didn’t know who to turn to about his feelings of emptiness, his feelings of missing parts of him that made him whole.  He wanted help from someone, but at the same time, the idea of telling someone of what was wrong with him scared him more then anything.  Should he tell his mom?  He would have gone to her before, before the darkness, before he had the keyblade, but now…Now there was a barrier between them.  She had been so happy to have her son back but he was so different and that scared her and upset her, something Sora understood.  He understood why she would work more and their conversations became stilted and tough to even start, much less continue.

He understood, but it still hurt.  But he guess its fair, since he must have hurt her badly when he disappeared like he did for all those years.

 

One day, he was going to talk to Riku and Kairi about it, but stumbled upon them talking together about him.  He heard them talking about how Sora (him, that’s him. Sometimes Sora can’t even remember who he is) had changed and how different he was.  Sora wasn’t sure why, but that scared him so much.  What if they decided they didn’t like how he changed and stopped talking to him all together.  What if he did tell them everything he felt and they didn’t believe him?

 

The hollow feeling expanded and it was as if he couldn’t breathe.  Sora turned and walked away before either of them could realize he was there.  After that, Sora began avoiding them all together.  It would just be easier, wouldn’t it, if he was the one to initiate the break between them.  It wouldn’t hurt as much, right?

 

Riku and Kairi didn’t notice at first that Sora’s excuses to not hang out were just that, excuses.  He told them he had to help his mom with some errands, he had to go to remedial classes, that he had to do something other than hanging out with them.  He could see them becoming suspicious, of the hurt look on their faces when he found another excuse not to hang out with them.  That guilty pain welled up in him again, but he continued with avoiding them.  It was for the best.

 

Everything came to a head after the winter exams.

 

As school let out and everyone made their ways home, talking about the upcoming holidays, how they think they did on the exams, Sora walked among them, sure that he had failed every exam.  He felt as if he was crumbling, that all he wanted to do was go home and sleep for the entire break, but he knew if he did go home, he’d face questions from his mother about how he did.  Sora was too tired to face the guilt of his mother’s resigned but disappointed face.

So deep in his thoughts, Sora didn’t hear the voices calling out for him.  He didn’t hear them call him a second time, but he felt the hand grab his arm.  Sora…did not react well to being suddenly grabbed.  His mind jumping to all the times he was grabbed by an enemy, their tight grasp digging into him.  Sora’s breath caught and his eyes widened and before he knew what he was doing, his keyblade was in his hand and at the neck of his attacker.  People around him screamed in shock at the sudden weapon in the hands of their classmate and they moved away.

 

Sora looked into the eyes of his attacker and couldn’t breathe; he felt as if he was under water.  Riku stared at him with wide eyes as the teeth of Sora’s keyblade was at his neck.  A look of shock, horror, and betrayal on Riku’s face was too much.  Kairi, who was behind Riku, had a similar look on her face as she had her hands over her mouth in horror.

 

It was too much, it was way too much.  He didn’t mean to do this, he didn’t want this, Sora didn’t want to hurt them he just…

 

Grasping his keyblade tightly, Sora turned and ran.  Students leap out of his away, fearful of his sudden weapon.  As he ran down the street, away from the school, he heard Riku calling his name.  Sora refused to look back, he just kept running.

 

It was as if time blurred for a while, and the next thing Sora knew, he was reaching the island and tying his boat to the dock.  He was the only one on the island, something that was expected since it was the middle of winter.  Stumbling into the sandy beaches of his once playground,  Sora fell to his knees, not caring in the slightest that he got his school uniform sandy, but instead focused on trying to breathe.

Trying to breathe and push back the tears felt like the hardest thing to do for Sora right now.  Sitting on the beach with cold wind licking at his tear streaked face, Sora felt as if the cold on his inside was joining forces with the wind to make him actually feel for the first time in a while.  Sora, still crying, used his keyblade to push himself up from his knees and used it to help him towards the mouth of the cave of the secret spot.  Walking through it, he had to duck.  He had gotten taller since the last time he had walked through here and it showed.  Once inside, Sora paused and looked around.

Seeing all the old drawings should have filled Sora with nostalgia, but instead, he just felt vaguely guilty.   Walking towards the old drawling that Sora and Kairi had drawn so many years ago, it made the guilt and something else well up: anger.  Sora wasn’t one to get angry, not really, but seeing that picture the two of them had made and remembering what he had done today, that he could have hurt Riku, that everything that’s been happening to him these past couple of months awoke a spark of anger in Sora and it erupted.

 

Using his keyblade, Sora scrapped over his drawn face until it was impossible to see it.  Seeing his hard work at destroying what Kairi had drawn and loved, the brunette felt as if the fire was doused out instantly and felt immediate guilt for what he had done.  He fell to his knees once again, letting out a gutted kneeing sound as he clutched his keyblade to his chest in a mockery of a hug.  The boy, a young man, sobbed and cried as he wondered what was wrong with him and why he just kept ruining things.  He ruined his mother’s hopes of having her child back by not being what she expected.  He ruined his grades at school because he wasn’t able to keep up with the work.  Now he ruined his friendship with the two people that meant the most to him.

 

Maybe he really was broken.

 

Unbeknownst to Sora, his heart had begun crying out for help, and throughout four hearts, the call resonated.  It was at that moment Sora felt something he hadn’t felt in months, not since all of his friends and people that he had held in his heart were now gone and on separate worlds: warmth.  He felt as if the warmth was coming closer, entering his heart…It made Sora’s cries shutter and begin to slow.  It was with every heartbeat, the warmth got closer and it made Sora realize that he could hear footsteps coming up the cave’s entrance.  Sora looked behind him, still clutching the keyblade to his chest like a lifeline, just as the person stepped into the room.

 

For a moment, Sora just stared, dumbfounded.  The person who just walked in had his same face as him, except his hair was pitch black and eyes golden and was still wearing the red and black bodysuit that Sora had last seen him in.  The person, Vanitas, stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before looking at Sora’s chest and sneering.

 

“So this is what you’ve become?” Vanitas mocked as a greeting.  “I thought you were better than this as a so called champion of light.”

 

“I-I…What?  What are you doing here Vanitas?”  Sora asked, bewildered.

 

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know.” Vanitas moved forward, towering over Sora who was still on his knees.  “You don’t get to call me months after that battle like nothing happened.  So what? Did none of your other little friends answer your call and I was the last one on the totem pole that you wanted to call?”

 

“V-Vanitas, I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I didn’t call for anyone; I don’t even have my gummi phone on me.”

 

Vanitas looked at him, taking in his ruffled uniform and the tear tracks on his face to his red and watery eyes and most importantly, he looked and saw Sora’s heart.

 

“Huh,” The dark haired male scoffed.  “You really do have no idea do you?  Your heart, or whatever is left of it I guess, called out for help.  Since our hearts are connected because of our shared past, you called out to me.”

 

“And you answered?” Sora blinked, honestly confused.

 

Vanitas scrunched his nose up, as if disgusted by the seemingly hidden message he’s reading from Sora’s tone.

 

“It’s not as if I could ignore it. It was so loud it was screeching in my head.  Besides, I was curious as to why you were so desperate to call me.  I was wondering if you were in danger, I was wondering if you were going to die.”  Vanitas showed Sora a dark teeth baring grin.  “I was wondering if I could watch.”

 

Sora closed his eyes and struggled to take a breath.  Opening once again, he used his keyblade to help himself to his feet.

 

“You said there was something wrong with my heart?  Is there really?  I-I’ve been feeling off, feeling empty for so long now and I didn’t know why.  I thought it was just me.”

 

“Yeah there is something wrong with your heart.  You really couldn’t tell? Aren’t you a keyblade master?  It’s pretty pathetic that you have huge chunks of your heart missing and you just now realize it.”  Rolling his golden eyes, Vanitas scoffs at him.

 

“How…?”  
  
  
“How did that happen? Ha, that’s all on you and those idiots you let take from you.  You let them stay in your heart, and then when they leave, they took more of you then what was just theirs.  No wonder you look like shit.  I’m honestly surprised you’re still alive at this point.  Figure with a heart like that, you won’t last much longer.”

 

Sora’s fist clenched around the handle of his keyblade.  Did this mean he was going to die?  More terrifying then the thought of dying was the realization that Sora didn’t feel so bothered by that sudden possible outcome.  He didn’t want to die, but he also didn’t want to keep living day to day feeling as he has for the past couple of months.

 

“I…I feel warm now.  I haven’t felt warm in months.”  He said softly, as if admitting it was a secret all in itself.

 

Snorting, Vanitas narrowed his eyes at Sora.

 

“The reason you’re probably warm right now is because I’m here right next to you…Wait, are you saying that none of those idiots who took pieces of your heart have visited in you months?”  He let out a sharp barking laugh. “Wow, they sure screwed you over huh?  So much for the power of friendship.”

 

Months ago, Sora would have defended his friends. 

Months ago, he would have told Vanitas that his friends were his power.

Months ago, Sora would have willingly used his keyblade against the other in order to protect his friends.

 

Now…now, Sora was just too tired and too empty to do anything.

 

Vanitas must have been expecting the reaction from the Sora from months ago, as he looked oddly disappointed when Sora just looked blankly at him.

 

“Tch.  Whatever, it’s too boring to make fun of an empty husk.”  He turned to walk away, the warmth in Sora’s chest, his heart, about to fade with Vanitas, and Sora reached out and grabbed his arm.

 

“Wait!  Please, don’t go.”  Just touching Vanitas’s arm caused warmth to shoot up Sora’s finger tips and up his arms and into his chest.  Sora gasps, shaking as the warmth fills him, unable to stop the tears once again filling his eyes.  Vanitas pulls his arm out of Sora’s grasp and the warmth that was filling his body is gone, leaving Sora to feel the aching cold that seems even sharper and more bitter then before.

 

“What, you expect me to stay here with you?  On this dump of an island?  No way, there are much more interesting worlds then this place.”  Vanitas turned and a dark corridor opened up in front him.

 

Sora, desperate, grabbed the other’s hand, holding onto it with both of his own hands.

 

“Please, then let me come with you!”  Vanitas’ eyes widened and Sora continued on before the other could interrupt.  “I’m so tired of feeling cold and alone.  I don’t want to die, but I’m not living here either.  I don’t…I don’t want to be here anymore.  Please, Vanitas, I promise I won’t be a bother.  Just these past couple of minutes with you has made me feel warmer then I have in the past months.  Please, I’ll do anything.”

 

The two of them stared at each other; one pair filled with desperate tears with a spark of determination that hadn’t been felt in months, while the other pair bewildered and narrowed as if trying to find hidden truths.

 

“…Alright.” Vanitas finally said, to the surprise of both of them seemingly.  “You can come with, but you have to do what I say.  If you don’t, I’m sure you can just imagine what I’ll do to you.”  He gave Sora a nasty smirk, which faded when Sora didn’t seem afraid of it at all but instead nodded in consent.

 

“Thank you Vanitas.”  Sora said earnestly.

 

The other scoffed and looked away. 

 

“So are we leaving or what?  I don’t want to be here all night.”

 

“Oh, sure.” Sora took a step towards the dark portal but stopped when he realized something.  “Wait, hold on.”

 

Sora turned his back towards the cave wall where he had defaced Kairi’s drawling of him.  Using his keyblade, he carved a message into the wall.  Once he was done, he nodded to himself as he figured that was better than nothing, and turned around.  He stepped back doing so though as he found Vanitas in his space, looking at what he had just written on the wall over his shoulder.

 

“Figures you’d write that.  C’mon, I want out of here as quickly as possible so you’re coming with me or I can just leave your ass here and we can both pretend this entire conversation never happened.” Vanitas barked orders at Sora, making him quickly hurry to the other’s side.

The black haired young man eyed Sora up another time with a deep scowl before finally making an mocking arm waving gesture.

 

“You first princess.”

 

Sora gave him a pointed look before looking around the cave one last time.  He knew the message he left wasn’t much of anything, but it had to be better than anything right.  Sora wonders if anyone will forgive him, or even understand why he chose this.  He can’t explain now, but maybe someday.  Someday if he ever actually comes back.

 

“Any day now princess.”

 

Sighing lightly, Sora a small, real, smile cross his face before looking at Vanitas.

 

“That’s Your Highness to you.”  Sora said, enjoying the slight taken aback look on the other’s face before stepping into the dark corridor.

 

Doing this might not be the best decision, or even a good decision, but it was an offer given to him and the only one Sora could see helping him at the moment.  He can only hope that doing this will finally make him feel alive again.

 

Sora can only hope.

 

** End **

**Author's Note:**

> So, just so anyone is concerned or wondering why Sora just doesn't tell his friends or so, I kinda based Sora's reactions on my own issues. I tend to bottle everything up and keep all my emotions and fears to myself and if I do tell anyone, if theres even a slight chance they react even in a slightly negative manner, I'll clam up and that kind of reinforces the thought process of I can't tell people how I feel. :/ it sucks.
> 
> Any Faves/Kudos/Comments will be appreciated! I hope you all enjoy this :3c


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